The first edition of Halsbury’s Laws of England has been digitized and made freely available by the University of Toronto Robarts Library. Halsbury’s Laws of England, a comprehensive and popular legal encyclopedia covering all areas of English law, has been published for over a century and is currently in its fifth edition.

For some, the first edition of Halsburys constitutes a benchmark for Canadian and Saskatchewan law. Fortunately, you can now access the first edition of this seminal encyclopedia, originally published from 1907 to 1917 across 31 volumes, right on your desktop.

You can find an online index to all 31 digitized volumes here. Links to each volume can be found below:

In the introduction to the first edition, the Right Honourable Earl of Halsbury, Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, explained that,

“The result is not a mere encyclopedia, it is not a mere collection of cases, but a number of treatises composed by learned lawyers, supported by the decisions of the great judges who have from time to time adorned the English Bench; and it is hoped that when finished the work will finish a complete statement of the Laws of England.”